Raul Labrador: ‘Disappointed’ in John Boehner

Rep. Raul Labrador isn’t amused by Speaker John Boehner’s ribbing of fellow Republicans for dragging their feet on immigration reform this year.

Labrador (R-Idaho) said in a statement Friday that he was “disappointed” in Boehner’s remarks conveyed back home in Ohio, in which he appeared to theatrically mimic House Republicans and their refusal to take up an immigration overhaul.

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“I was disappointed with Speaker Boehner’s comments, and I think they will make it harder – not easier – to pass immigration reform,” Labrador said. “The vast majority of House Republicans are pro-immigration reform, and we have been working hard to achieve it.”

In an appearance before the Middletown Rotary Club Thursday, Boehner stressed that he was committed to rewriting immigration laws and that he’s had “every brick and bat and arrow shot at me” because of his push to do so.

“Here’s the attitude. Ohhhh. Don’t make me do this. Ohhhh. This is too hard,” Boehner said of his fellow House Republicans, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. A spokesman for Boehner later said: “As the speaker often says to his colleagues, you only tease the ones you love.”

In his statement Friday, Labrador repeated the primary reason why House Republicans have said they can’t do immigration reform: They simply don’t trust President Barack Obama to implement whatever laws Congress may write.

“The problem is Obama, not House Republicans,” Labrador said. “Speaker Boehner should have made that point, instead of criticizing the people he is supposed to be leading.”

“I know Speaker Boehner sincerely cares about immigration reform as much as I do,” Labrador continued. “If he wants the Republican conference to follow him on this issue, he needs to stand up for House Republicans, instead of catering to the media and special interest groups.”

Labrador, a former immigration lawyer, has periodically dipped in and out of reform efforts this Congress. He engaged in closed-door negotiations with a bipartisan group of House members, before quitting in irreparable dispute over health care for immigrants in the country illegally.

A spokesman for Boehner said in response to Labrador’s comments that he agrees with the Idaho Republican.

“While he may have engaged in some good-natured ribbing yesterday about Washington’s reluctance to confront big challenges, he rejects the massive Senate bill and has said many times that the main impediment to action this year in the House to fixing our broken immigration system is the widespread doubt that the president can be counted on to enforce anything he signs into law,” spokesman Michael Steel said. “His light-hearted comments yesterday don’t change that.”

House Republican leadership has no plans to take up immigration reform in the immediate future. A memo released Friday by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) outlining the House’s spring agenda did not mention immigration.